TEXAS BRIEFS

Lawmakers propose tougher drinking law

Posted: Thursday, February 04, 1999

AUSTIN (AP) - For the fifth time in his 10-year tenure in the House, state Rep. Fred Hill, R-Richardson, has filed a bill that would strengthen Texas' open container law and increase penalties for repeat drunken driving violations.

Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, has filed similar legislation in the Senate.

"Texans feel they have the right to finish up a day of working out in the hot sun and drive down the highway in their pick-up truck, down a bottle and toss it empty in the back," Hill said Wednesday.

His legislation has failed in previous sessions to emerge from committee scrutiny.

Nelson pointed out that lawmakers have an extra incentive to pass the legislation this session. This time, it is not only a matter of life, she said, but money.

If new federal standards for the penalties of both repeat drunken driving violations and open container laws are not in place by Oct. 1, 2000, Texas would be forced to divert about $40 million in highway construction funds to other safety programs, she said. That amount would then increase to about $80 million in October 2002 if the federal provisions are not in place, she added.

Man's gets life sentence 29 years after convicted DALLAS (AP) - After spending nearly half his life on the run from the law, Charles Edward Garrett has returned to a courtroom to find out that time had not erased the sentence he skipped out on in 1970.

State District Judge Harold Entz gave the 56-year-old Garrett the same sentence that a Dallas County jury handed down 29 years ago: life in prison.

The sentencing on Tuesday ended three months of legal wrangling over Garrett's fate. He was convicted on Feb. 12, 1970, of possessing 23 capsules of heroin, but while still free on bond he left the courtroom before the jury sentenced him to life in prison.

Although Garrett said he moved back to Dallas about 15 years ago, it wasn't until last October that Dallas County sheriff's deputies tracked him down. In his 29 years on the lam, Garrett said, he steered clear of the law, fathered about a dozen children and held down steady jobs.

Supporters said after his arrest that the state should not waste resources imprisoning a law-abiding man who would have been sentenced to a far shorter term if convicted today.